


That morning

by napuleh



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: (again), BUT LIKE HE LIVES SO IT'S OK RIGHT?, Bullshit history, Forced Marriage, Gen, Historical Inaccuracy, OOO TAGS ARE HARD, POV First Person, Post-War, Spanish Civil War, just read the damn thing babes, mentions of death & execution, to be safe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 16:34:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23510134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/napuleh/pseuds/napuleh
Summary: Antonio, in desperate need of healing and relief, relates what used to be his life - starting with one morning in particular that was neither the beginning or end of anything, but just a really bad fucking day in a series of terrible, terrible days - to the reader, for the sake of keeping it together up there.
Relationships: Spain (Hetalia) & Original Character(s), Spain (Hetalia)/Original Character(s), Spain (Hetalia)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	That morning

My life didn’t change from night to day. But when I opened my eyes that morning, it felt as if what I had endured for those two, nearly three years had been a nightmare. If I just got up and walked over to the window, I would see couples walking arm in arm down the street, flowers being sold by the bouquet, someone trying to make a few pesetas and go home. The sun would kiss my face and I would throw the doors of the window open, like in those early films, and shout across to my neighbor: —Doña Isabel, is it time for coffee yet?—

I missed her so much. Doña Isabel made the worst coffee. I missed sipping on it, watery, and cheap, as we had our little arguments in the morning, every morning, because she loved me, and wanted to see me happy. Her idea of happiness was a marriage, of course, with several children and a profession and a home somewhere away from the city.

—But don’t you see that you’re the only woman for me?— I would joke, knowing that deep down in my heart, the only person I could see myself marrying at that point just simply would not be up to par with her expectations of me.

Remiel, my friend, this beautiful, brilliant young man who dedicated himself to me every Sunday afternoon for  _ six months in a row _ . He brought me the most beautiful carnations I had laid eyes upon, good beer if he could find it, and an immeasurable amount of pleasure with his company… o, how my heart aches, thinking about how things ended so abruptly, how any future we could have had was ripped from our hands.

If it had been a nightmare, I could get up, and go drink with her a taza of coffee that I swear was mostly dandelion ground and ash. I would kiss her wrinkly old forehead as Doña Isabel cooed at me, trying to convince me that she knew someone whose niece was very nice and  _ very  _ pretty, awaiting a prince like me to make a princess out of her! I would hold her face in my hands, and say, —Your mother and her mother before her tried to convince me of the same thing,— and laugh until she thought that I didn’t mean it.

Instead I laid there because I felt it, that everything had been real, that we tore each other to shreds for months on end and here we were–here I was–the regretful survivor of a war I couldn’t afford to lose, but that I did. I lost. Everyone that was precious to me had met their end by firing squad, or had been herded into a concentration camp to be shot there, instead.

I was the last to surrender my weapon, not because I thought I still had a chance, but because I didn’t want them to have to watch me die. I also didn’t deserve to spare myself of the guilt that accompanied watching as they fell, one by one, into that mass grave. Bodies upon bodies, shell after shell, yet I didn’t cry. I wasn’t alive: I was just a body that hadn’t fallen in yet. When they grabbed my hair and slit my throat, I felt relieved, like I would finally be at rest.

Despite being riddled with bullets, a few days later, I clawed my way out, retching and heaving and crying, only to be grabbed by the wrists and dragged along to the capital. —The Spanish State—, they called me. —Burn in hell,— I replied.

For months, I felt rotted, violated, with every second I lived I felt more and more wrong, every breath I took was forced and the air stung like poison in my lungs, I couldn’t breathe much less get up by my own will, but now I had no choice. No say. I had to get up. I had to move on. If I wasn’t going to die, then my only option would be to try to survive the cruelty of the nation I now found myself in. A foreigner in my own home, persona non grata in the streets that had been built for me, that I helped map out.

When I think of that morning, I think of how cruel life could be, and that I deserved that cruelty, while at the same time thinking that I didn’t deserve to live, but that it would be too light of a condemnation for me to die. This is what I have felt for ages. This is what I will feel until the wounds inflicted upon me scab over.

But it has been less than a century since the war, not even fifty years since the end of that damned regime, and time has not been good to me. I have not been good to myself. Because I am not a martyr, I am not a victim; I have been arrogant and unkind and selfish for too long; I don’t learn from my mistakes even if I suffer their consequences, and I know, deep down, that I cannot overcome my past because I refuse to face it.

I’m tired. I want to rest. I want to go back, to that river from which I crawled out, and I want to curl up until I am found… and I’ll have a normal life. I’ll age, I’ll hunt and gather and weave. Maybe I’ll die young, destined to meet my end by spear, or some illness, or I’ll drink too much and keel over! I always wanted to die laughing, so that would be perfect. Drunk and happy and dead. My funeral pyre…the thought makes me too happy. I should know better now, but it makes me  _ so fucking happy _ .

I think Doña Isabel would have wanted for me to be happy that morning. It was what she had always dreamed of. Seven years after the war ended, in 1946, I was getting married to a young woman who had been handpicked for me.

Bonifacia came from nothing, had a strong fear of God, and had never worn red lipstick until the day she became my wife. After that, I don’t think she picked it up more than once or twice in the fifteen years that we lived together. She was virginal and pure, which to them meant that she would be the cure to my troubles, and the perfect coverup for my bad reputation.

They didn’t know that I could contaminate everything I touch, and that she was no exception. I hardened her heart over time with the cruelty of my words, my inability to love her or even become her friend, despite the fact that we were both trapped in the same cage. Yes, I was forced to marry her, but no one forced me to treat her unkindly.

I didn’t realize that until after the ruse became impossible to keep up. She aged, and I didn’t, not at the same rate as her, and she wanted  _ children _ … After she left me, with the blessing of the state and an annulment, she married again just three months. Within the year, shortly after her 33 rd birthday, she had her first baby, a girl named María Dolores, and that was the last that I heard of her. Far from being insulted, I actually felt happy for her, and sent her flowers.

(Carnations, of course.)

She didn’t care much for them, but all of a sudden, I cared so much for her.

— _Why are you here?_ —

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back at it again with the bullshit history!
> 
> Please keep in mind - I am not an expert on the Spanish Civil War but I am not entirely ignorant of what occured - I'm just a person writing as another person on the internet, letting a muse vent and hopefully, making a good, entertaining thing at approx. 5:30 in the morning.  
> Thank you for making it this far, and hopefully this piques some interest in the topic, leading to someone writing something better, more feelsy, more educational and rich than my sadboi Spain fic written for an ask meme prompt LOL!
> 
> Remiel was an archangel, and allegedly one of the 12 fallen angels, but I couldn't get confirmation of that through my brief research on the topic (in English). We can imagine that after Antonio breaks up with him, he gets...a somewhat happy, albeit private life, or - or worse, but why would we do that?
> 
> Bonifacia literally means "good fate" - which she would end up having after all - but there was a Saint Boniface, "Apostle of the Germans" ... but let's not read too much into that part of it I suppose 😳
> 
> ...may or may not have a second part written to it, fingers crossed haha


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